A Brown, Furry Thief…

Getting right down to work, one of the lovely knitting resources given to me from Eva was seemed to be right up my ally – Jess Hutchinson’s Unusual Toys For You To Knit and Enjoy. I went right to work on the first pattern that caught my eye, which just happened to be the very first pattern in the book.

“Henry the Bear” is so cute, how could I simply pass him by? It reminded me a whole lot of one of the free knitting patterns for a stuffed rabbit I made ages ago, when I realized that it had also been designed by Jess Hutchinson! This woman’s got talent up the wazoo. Not only are her designs all adorable and unique, but they are also very easy for a beginner to follow, seeing as her bunny was probably the second stuffed toy I had ever knit.

Nearly all of these toys are knit on #8 DPN’s, but for some reason I couldn’t find mine, so I just grabbed the nearest set. I don’t remember exactly what size they were, probably #7’s or 6’s, but that’s not really important or interesting, now is it? I loved the fact that this project used up a good deal of scrap yarn while making something that I would like to keep around. Stash-busting to make thousands of dishcloths way be effective, but… In my own opinion, dead boring.

Something about his basic shape was so imensely pleasing, how it was so unique and different from your classic teddy bear… I couldn’t bring myself to disrupt the clean flow of his outline with limbs. Let’s forget that in addition to this adoration for his simple shape, I was feeling a bit lazy at the moment. Sometimes, I think that stuffed animals just don’t need all those gangly arms and legs, that they can become even more intensely cute without them. You understand the reason for my madness, right?

After finishing my Henry, I wanted to take pictures right then and there to share with all of the blogosphere, but it was growing darker by the minute. In one of those rare moments when I actually come up with a good idea, I realized that I could set up a mini “green screen” by propping scrap fabric on my sewing machine and then using the high powered flourecent light attatched to the table! Hopefully I’ll have fewer dark, ugly photos on cloudy days now (It’s really hard to manage your time in a way that you always have sunny days free…)

The funniest thing happened after I snapped the first few pictures though. I went to go answer the phone for just a minute, I swear, but when I came back to finish up with my Henry… He had disappeared! Has one of my creations truly come to life this time? I just wonder where on earth he went…

Ahhh, I love Jess’s little book! Your bear came out great, so cute being held by the dog. Are you going to try anything else from the little book, I like Spherey. Oh just curious about what all Japanese books you got from Eva, think you could share the isbn numbers with me? I live near a Japanese bookstore so I am always curious about more books. Keep up the awesome work! :)

Hi there! I stumbled upon your blog looking for pics of projects from Jess Hutch’s book. I was so excited to see a pic of your doggie! I have two Basenjis so I was tickled to find another blogger with a Basenji. Would you believe there are more of us? Staci is a blogger with Basenjis too — her blog is here: http://www.verypink.com/